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Wednesday, February 02, 2011

The mad moose of Lewiston

Here's another piece of urban legend or folklore, depending on your preference for terminology.

Back in the mid-1980s, a friend of mine grew up in Lewiston, Maine. Her family lived on a sideroad off of Grove Street. Not too far away was a sandpit which was accessed via trails that ran past a marshy wildland that ran in back of the neighborhood.

Among the local kids who used to hang out in the sandpit, riding their bikes and so on, there was a story that circulated -- the Legend of the Brainless Moose!

Legend had it that the moose had a parasitic worm that entered its head through its ear and ate away at its brains over the years. The result was a crazed, rampaging moose with only half a brain left! If you heard rustling in the undergrowth, you knew the moose was coming, and you got out of there fast!

Lewiston is no stranger to rampaging and roaming moose, with or without brainworms, according to other friends who grew up in the area. I'm sure other groups of kids in the area had their own tales, but it'll be hard to top this one!